I took some time off from blogging - like a lot of time off - because I had a BABY! Babies take up SO MUCH TIME and between that and going back to work, blogging just had to be on the back burner. However, when I was off, being the tech enthusiast that I am, I definitely found a couple baby apps that could totally be used for the classroom! Here are my top two: TinybeansTinybeans is a photo sharing app and website that allows you to share pictures with friends and family via email or through the app if you want to register for an account. For us, we didn't want to share too much of our little guy on social media but we wanted grandparents, other family members, and a few friends to be able to see daily pictures if they wanted. There are tons of photo sharing apps out there, but my favorite is Tinybeans. They have free and paid accounts so it definitely fits the budget and it incredibly easy to navigate. My grandmother loves it! She shows all of her "crafty bunch" friends the app and encourages them to have their families use it as well! The view is set to look like a calendar, and when you click a day, you can see all pictures and videos posted for a day. You can add collaborators and even restrict access to certain photos and videos. How can you use it for the classroom? Glad you asked! If you wanted to share photos with your students' parents, all you would have to do is add their email address. (Certainly check and make sure your students' pictures can be shared via social media, first.) Then, parents can see daily or weekly what your students are doing in your classroom! This would be best for elementary classrooms, but I think any parent would be happy to see what their child is doing throughout the day at any age! Order photo books at the end of the year for a keepsake! 1 Second Everyday1 Second Everyday is such a fun app. You add a picture or a video for 1 second duration every day for however long you want, and it puts it into a video. Upgrade to make your pictures or videos longer than 2 seconds.
We used this as well and I LOVED the video it made of our sweet guy on his birthday.
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So a while back you saw that I jumped on the breakout bandwagon. I used Google Sites in conjunction with Breakout EDU's lock platform but I just didn't think the kids were really enjoying the breakouts and understood it was a digital escape room.
So, back to the drawing board. When another DLC told me that she was using Genial.ly for breakouts, I had to go check it out. Ummm... IN LOVE. That's all I have to say. They have previously created escape rooms that can be easily modified. Take a look below at some of the breakouts I've created with Genially for my teachers! AP Chemistry Physics - Newton's Laws Pre-Ap Chemistry Chemistry - Mole Conversion Algebra I I've written about student choice before but I want to talk today specifically about student choice boards.
As a campus we've done a big push for student choice. My librarian and I hosted our teachers for lunch this week and talked directly about student choice and why it's important. Take a look at our presentation below. We took and modified the Google Site we as DLCs use to help facilitate professional development with first year teachers and used it for our campus. It was perfect! We had great conversation and sharing and lots of people using the templates provided on the site for their students. Google Site Take a look and let me know what you think!
I've written about some of these before but I wanted to take a few minutes to remind everyone about a few and introduce maybe a few new tools. Click through my genial.ly presentation below and see if there's something new! If it's not new, see a new way to implement an older tool. Remember, it's not about the tool, it's about how the tool is enhancing learning!
We recently had a new teacher move into our Earth and Space Science role and I couldn't be more excited that he's asked me to meet with him every time he plans to make his classroom more challenge and problem based. We've done a mix of project and problem/challenge based learning so far and will be diving into more as the year goes on.
My first five years in education were spent in 7th and 8th grade Science so I've been really pumped to partner with him on digital lessons and infusing more technology integration into his curriculum. So far, we've done projects over The Big Bang, Sars, and Fracking. Take a look at the project info below and then take a look at the sample student projects!
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AuthorDigital Learning Coach & technology lover. Constantly looking for innovative ways to engage students and facilitate 21st century learning. Archives
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